Staten Island education appointee email ignites firestorm

Advance file photoSalvatore Ballarino, the borough president's appointee to the volunteer CEC board, has come under fire for an email he forwarded ripe with racist slurs. Ballarino denies he did anything wrong or inappropriate.

An email ripe with racist slurs -- crudely presented as a mock debate between President Obama and Sen. John McCain, sent by a member of Staten Island's Community Education Council to dozens of recipients -- including other members of the public schools' parent advisory board, is stirring outrage among African American leaders, who anonymously received a copy of the offensive communique and plan to take action in response to it.

The mock photo strip, sent Jan. 4 by Salvatore Ballarino, the borough president's appointee to the volunteer board, features cartoon-like speech balloons drawn out of McCain's mouth referencing lynching African Americans and equating African American babies with excrement.

The widely forwarded email also questions black fathers' ability to support their families and states Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles are always smiling, because they did not know they were black. After each "punch line" the cartoon-like strip shows a photo of Obama's face, positioned in such a way to make him look stunned and dumbstruck.

Dozens of African American parents, school children and educators are expected to attend the meeting of the Community Education Council tonight at Petrides Educational Complex, Sunnyside, to question how somebody charged with representing all Staten Islanders could find the material funny, and then have the bad judgment to forward the email around.

"Jokes are jokes, but this goes beyond what you might regard as a harmless joke. This is very offensive," said Edward Josey, the president of the Staten Island NAACP, noting the group decided at its meeting last week to make their feelings known publicly. "If he's telling jokes of this nature, how sincere is he about educating all the children of Staten Island?"

Ballarino does not believe he did anything wrong or inappropriate.

"If they're upset about something it's their own inner workings -- it's what they want to make out of it," said Ballarino, when reached yesterday at home. "It was a political cartoon; that's how I treated it. What was funny about it was the look on Obama's face, like he didn't even know what he was talking about."

Ballarino served as a member of the now-defunct Community School Board since 1993, and was appointed by Borough President James P. Molinaro, when the CECs replaced the school boards in 2004. During his tenure, he has headed a number of committees, most notably School Construction.

"Did anybody ever accuse of me of doing anything racist before? No," he said. "I have black people who are my friends; I work with black people; I have black people sit at my dinner table with me."

Ballarino said he similarly forwards jabs at other communities. "I get jokes and I send them. I get redneck jokes. I get Irish jokes. I get Italian jokes."

Although he said he did not find the material he had sent particularly offensive, Ballarino did weigh in on the New York Post's recent publication of a violent cartoon most viewed as mocking Obama, calling it "a little overboard."

The email has brought to the fore long-held feelings among African Americans and other minority groups that decision-makers in Staten Island's District 31 are not sufficiently attuned to their communities, he said.

There are currently no African American members of the Community Education Council.

"The voices of minority concerns in public schools are oftentimes overlooked," wrote Tammy Greer Brown, the chairwoman of the NAACP education committee, in an email organizing tonight's protest. "This email potentially violates all educational and civil rights laws that are currently in existence."

The all-volunteer council does not have wide-ranging authority but is meant to act as liaison between parents and the city Department of Education.

Molinaro last night could not be reached for comment.

"If you want to tell jokes among your friends, don't put it on the airways; you never know where emails will end up," said Josey, who has known Ballarino for years in education circles. "I would view him differently now than I would at one time. He stepped beyond a line."